The Paralysis of Pacifism: In Defense of Militant Direct Action and “Violence” for Animal Liberation (Video)

This lecture was given at a former-slaughterhouse of Aprilia, Italy (now a cultural center) on September 6th, 2012. This talk was videotaped by the Veggie Channel and uploaded to their videopage and to You Tube.

The more you see the utter futility and hopelessness of trying to change one belligerent, suspicious mind at a time, so easily brought back to the ugly fold of conformity, the more you realize, sadly, that militancy, direct action, and “violence” are better solutions. Trouble is, we’d need a much bigger army; hopefully numbers will reach the needed level. The “debating” and outreach and all the rest of the peaceful, accepted although still hated methods are mainly stressful and too hard fought for the meager results. It’s all quite disgusting really…these fights should never have been even remotely necessary. What a dismal, embarrassing failure of a so-called advanced species. My hear is permanently broken by what people do, it’s beyond redemption, and I’m sick to death of it. The Comeuppance and The End must happen, and very soon. At the moment I’m all out of hope. But it sometimes returns, due to the Green Hill liberators and others like them. Heroes.

My advice: study and absorb the principles of asymmetric warfare and be prepared to implement these tactics whenever the opportunity presents itself. And Laura, you’d best avail yourself of a tetanus vaccination before you have to get down and dirty in the mud!

I’ll pass on that tetanus vaccination, but I know you meant it metaphorically. Vivisection & vaccination go hand-in-hand and both are fraudulent, damaging, therefore fervently believed in by the faithful, non-believers aggressively condemned. Thanks for the good regards, same to you 🙂

Laura, I feel very discourged and totally disgusted with the human race, too.. When you try to educate people, they just look at you like you are nuts, and that you are from another planet. All they care about is shopping for things, vacationing, entertainment, especially expoiting animals in entertainment. It most often seems hopeless educating people, but I still try to, as one person has become vegan. It is a lot of work and very stressful – there must be a better way.

We’re all doing it together, imagine if the 140 million approximate vegans each changed just one mind, and so on, and on, how it spreads this way. We’re increasing in numbers more than people care to admit; I really believe there are many more than we know about since there is so much more catering to vegan needs in mainstream stores now, even if overpriced so they don’t sell much…still it remains available. To admit to swelling popularity of veganism and animal “rights” would cause more increase, as people are creatures of popularity, so government, industry, and media choose to ignore, hype the opposition, or otherwise dismiss us and hush our message. It’s the people from all walks of life who will get these changes done, not those in charge. Keep on despite the stress, but don’t let stress harm you, keep strong & healthy. I’m with you and so are many, many others.

Thanks for an eloquent and passionate recitation of what should be obvious to every thinking person not dazzled by blind faith in polyannish pacifism. Naive trust that such “peaceful tactics” (read: the kiind where I don’t have to actually put my ass on the line) can ever succeed in a corporate police state like the one we currently dwell in is not just intellectually infantile and morally sterile but flies in the face of historical reality. If public education, peaceful protest, and “working within the system” were the recipe for success, why after 50 years of non-stop “environmental education” is the planet poised on the brink of an ecological abyss from which there will be, for many, many species, no return? Why, if modern society has progressed in its attitudes toward non-humans, are the pinnacles of higher education also the principle sites of animal experimentation and why has cable television exploded in the last few years with programs excusing if not celebrating organized, entirely legal, animal abuse? Was it just because “mainstream” (read: co-opted) environmental and animal rights organizations failed to have enough naked girls jumping out of cakes?

God bless the ALF, the ELF, and ARM and all those brave activists who believe in “by any means necessary.”

I tend to agree with Laura. I feel things are pretty hopeless. And my heart is broken too. I laugh at Geoff’s “intellectually infantile” and “morally sterile” observations. Really!
What poppycock!
I am a pacifist. It is my nature. I will never be otherwise. I cannot even imagine doing something violent.And if that view puts me on the wrong side of the “elite” vegans then so be it. I will push the off button on this computer and never hear the insults. The tactics of ALF,ELF and ARM scare me. And have those groups righted the wrongs? They are driven by hate and violence-they hate me and my kind. They have naughty language and bad tempers. I am all for the peaceful protest groups and educated speakers like Steven Best and Gary (I can’t spell his name)and the David Coles of the world and many other elegant and peaceful people.
I beg to differ with Betsy Graber about Camille Marino and her tactics. She does not get things done.
There are other choices. Or maybe it IS too late.

“Poppycock”, eh? So I take it that polite discourse and handwringing are your preferred
approach for dealing with intolerable situations. I’m certainly glad, as are no doubt your countrymen and the surviving remnant of European Jewry, that you weren’t in charge of the resistance movement in occupied Europe during World War II. Slaves would still be slaves and African-Americans would still be second-class citizens in their own country if brave activists had not drawn a line in the sand and been willing to back it up with force. And most of those resistors and activists were probably scared, too; scared of the Gestapo, scared of the police, scared of the Klan. But they did not let fear for their own personal safety or comfort paralyze them into accepting a malign status quo.

Let me ask you, Denderah, if a child sexual predator (or a dog poisoner for that matter) were loose in your community and the ONLY way open to you to stop his depredations was by physical force, would you still follow the pacifist line even if that inevitably meant that a sizable number of children (or dogs) would be harmed? Does your starry-eyed idealism make you honestly believe that morally depraved individuals can be turned-around simply through impassioned discussion over cups of herbal tea? Is the preservation of your pacifist philosophical “purity” more important than actions that actually save lives? If yes is your answer, then your lack of committment to suppressing evil and effectuating genuine change is exceeded only by your misreading of human history and you’ve become part of problem, rather than the solution, to ending animal abuse. As Ruskin said, the only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men (and women like you) to do nothing.

@Geoff: Good statement there. It was polite of her but I don’t know why Denderah agreed with me, since I very much support ALF actions. Even though I stay strictly within the law, pacifism isn’t for me. I’m fully prepared to kill anyone who invades my home. And like you, Geoff, I believe suppressing evil involves fighting fire with fire, unfortunately, and that others’ pacifism is thoroughly enjoyed by sadists & tyrants. And brute tyrants come from all ends of the political spectrum, especially those appointed to “take care of” the populace. I’m certainly no liberal. So there’s another area where you and I have a rift. There are always those 😦

Sorry, that last quote is attributed to Edmund Burke, not John Ruskin.

Thank you, Laura, for your kind remarks. We may not see eye-to-eye on politics (or the utility of vaccination!) but we are in solidarity in wanting a better deal for the world’s non-human beings and being unapologetic for non-effete methods of achieving it.

Mothers of human infants have throughout history proudly and boldly proclaimed that they would do anything -absolutely anything to protect their young. It is the stuff of Hollywood movies. What is the difference in perceiving it our duty to take the moral high ground and step up and defend and protect the children of other helpless victims?
Our nation and our world is slipping away because its citizens cannot bear to hear the truth, and rather pathetically defend their right to stand by and do nothing. It’s enough to make a person vomit.

Reblogged this on Autonomous Action Radio and commented:
I’ve had many arguments with Pacifists… or people who like to call themselves pacifist … this is a powerful speech really gets yr attention and provides a good analysis on the myths of pacifism.

Fuck this corrupt, omnicidal, nihilistic, corporate-controlled, fascist world-system; you don’t reform evil, you destroy it. Not a chance in hell to create a culture of life until we destroy the culture of death. Disease has consumed the entire body of civilization. We live among ruins, we inhabit a graveyard, an apocalyptic wasteland strewn with corpses, carrion, and zombies.

We need to focus like a laser beam on a grim truth: whatever the gains of a worldwide environmental and animal rights movements throughout the last four decades, they have nonetheless continued to lose ground in the battle to save biodiversity, to stop or even slow down the destruction of the rainforests, topsoil, coral reefs; to prevent ever-worsening resource wars; to end the blatant and open war and Holocaust against nonhuman animals; and to come to grips with the immanent catastrophe of climate change in our minds let alone our policies and actions.

The sense of urgency is rising in proportion to the severity of the crisis. Increasingly, calls for legislative change, moderation, compromise, and taking the slow march through the institutions can be seen as grotesquely inadequate, as growing numbers of people gravitate toward more radical tactics of change. “Reasonableness” and “moderation” in the current situation seem to be entirely unreasonable and immoderate, as “extreme” and “radical” actions appear simply as necessary and appropriate.

From Athens to Paris to Brazil, there is growing realization that politics as usual just won’t cut it anymore. We will always lose if we play by their rules rather than invent new forms of struggle, new social movements, and new sensibilities. The defense of the earth requires immediate and decisive action: logging roads need to be blocked, driftnets need to be cut, and cages need to be emptied. But these are piecemeal and reactive measures, and in addition to these tactics, radical movements and alliances must be built that unites struggles on behalf of humanity, nonhuman animals, and the earth in a politics of total liberation.

Resistance is the oxygen of the future. Live to resist, resist to live.